Friday, December 10, 2010

You know that if they still had Best Dance Direction (1935-1937 RIP) or some such choreography prize, that Benjamin Millipied who dances, acts, and choreographs Black Swan (as well as romancing Natalie Portman offscreen) would be in the running for an Oscar.

“My curiosity goes a lot further than just the ballet world... my body has a certain amount of knowledge that has nothing to do with ballet.”

Given his modelling, off ballet interests, Portman dating, and now acting, maybe we'll be seeing more of him after Swan? For someone who can leap so high in the air, Millipied's official site is weirdly horizontal --- scroll scroll scroll across not up or down.ANYWAYYYY..Oscar categories that don't exit. Discuss.*

Non-existant cat: A Best Article of Criticism category? The rules are 1. No year in review articles. Single film articles only. 2. No picks where the opinion would be obvious (acceptable range on RT: 30-85%). And, most important: 3. One piece of criticism per film. If they add critics to the Academy, they should at least get a category.

I always fantasized about an Oscar for Best Cameo or some other award for a very small role that really stands out. I know that Judi Dench & Beatrice Straight already won awards for glorified cameos, but something along those lines.

You KNOW the actors want to have even more awards for themselves, and it's all anyone tunes in to watch anyway.

I first started thinking of this after watching Martin Short in The Big Picture. Such a small role, and such a huge impact.

But since that's just a fantasy, what about combining two "favorite" categories to come up with a new one: Best Foreign Language Documentary?

Realistically: ensemble and casting. So often a good performance comes (at least half of it) from a good casting choice.

Less realistically: foreign language acting/directing awards. If BP nominees without Best director nominations are strange, BFLF winners have no cast and director?

Even less realistically: the make up (make out?) Oscar. Yes, honestly admitting: "we screwed it up back in ..., so here's your Oscar. You're still not old enough and still working, to get a Honorary one."If the academy had some sense of humour, they could do it in a comedic tone within a skit with the host, but with real value.

Just so you know: There are 4 roles I've seen that I'd classify as limited have been nominated in the supporting category. 1. Hermione Baddeley, 2. Sylvia Miles, 3. Beatrice Straight, 4. Toni Collette. (Sorry. That car scene does not bump her to supporting. LAW OF PERCENTAGES.)

Though the idea of categories for limited performances sounds intriguing, something tells me that if it were to ever happen, we would see huge stars desperately seeking Oscar showing up in those types of roles for the sole purpose of awards consideration.

@Volvagia: You really view Toni Collette's role in "The Sixth Sense" a limited one?

From the time I first became obsessed with James Bond movies, I've been on the Stunts bandwagon. Especially nowadays, with excessive CGI everywhere, real stunts by real people should be acknowledged out loud and awarded.

Maybe I'm wrong and I'll have to rewatch the movie, but I think she was in <5%. (Beatrice Straight was in 5 minutes of a 120 min movie. That's about 4.2% of Network. The Laureen Hobbs character would count as support, however. (Also: Hobbs is the co-lead of B plot. Straight was only a support of plot C of the 4 plots of the movie. Jansen is the same way.)

I would actually not want ANY more categories. At all. People complained about how the 10 Best Picture nominees would dilute the meaning of being nominated. Perhaps it did, but I was personally behind the move.

If there is a Best Ensemble award, do you just give Oscars to everyone listed on the ensemble?? So you could technically win two acting Oscars in one year? That's a move I would not be behind. It feels silly. If you wanna go all SAG on me, eliminate the supporting (I know they have that as well), and just have Best Performance by an Actor and Best Performance by an Actress. Include all leading and supporting roles. There are enough categories at the Oscars as it is. This way we have one less category! Also, only the most worthy performances would be recognized. Hopefully.

yeah, to me stunts and casting directors are probably the best examples of undersung by oscar.

but as much as i value a good ensemble i'm not sure it works as a reward. no matter who gives it out it always seems like a Best Picture prize and a "best ensemble" might actually mean Best Casting + Best Direction of the People Chosen ¬ the Star Performances.˚

I was going to say Best Scene as well. I know it's totally impractial to define and there's a tiny problem of determining who the Oscar would actually be given to, but that would be such a fun category. If Acadmey members just voted for it and didn't give an actual Oscar- that would be awesome.

Orchestration. That way, adapted scores can be recognized, too, and there's a third music category to further justify recognizing music at the Oscars. Like original song, it can be one of those optional categories with a long vetting process to produce anywhere from two to five nominations in a given year.

As much as I like the idea of an award for choreography, there probably aren't many films each year that would qualify. Maybe stunts and choreography could be considered as close enough for one award.Maybe in the not so distant future, there could be a best actor in motion capture or animation.On the associated subject of less awards, I would remove the gender from Best Supporting. I can understand why they separate Actor and Actress for lead role awards (even though I don't really agree) but I don't think it should apply to supporting roles.

Perhaps they should have an award for cumulative work in a year. So they could give it to Helen Mirren who has been in heaps of movies this year. Or they could give it to someone who has scored a couple of movies this year, dont just limit it to acting. You'd probably have to have a minimum amount of movies worked on in a year and it would be based on quality too.